


inhale, exhale

by mishapdash (TinkerTenorDoctorSpy)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Sburb, Pre-Sburb, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-29
Updated: 2015-05-19
Packaged: 2018-02-19 07:24:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2379806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TinkerTenorDoctorSpy/pseuds/mishapdash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(set pre and post-SBURB, beta timeline)</p><p>heck, let’s time travel</p><p>A series of snapshots in the life and times of Dave and Bro Strider with a sprinkling of more-than-occasional incest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> In which Bro acts like a hormonal teenage girl with a crush and Dave is confused and has nice hair.

_Part I. Breaths_

 

       Sometimes you thought about how easy it would be to leave, just walk out the door and never come back to the tiny cramped apartment that is your life and soul and hell. Send checks every month and a gift card at Christmas and birthdays. Dave can take care of himself, you know he can, you taught him to from the moment he crashed into your life, sat up in your arms, and fixed you with an unwavering red stare.

       You don’t know what stops you, what keeps you from cutting the final strand between you and your brother, what keeps you from truly being able to keep him safe ( _from you, always you_ ).

       But this is how it starts.

       Dave is thirteen, long-limbed and awkward, all coltish and none of the charm. You come home from the club at two in the morning, half asleep, half drunk out of your mind, wishing you had more of a buzz than what you could catch between shifts.

       Too late, you see the light is on in the bathroom. Too late, you stagger past the open door and see Dave, nude save a thin terrycloth towel around his waist, carefully coiffing his hair into an orderly style you’re not even sure how he manages to sculpt, let alone maintain. And normally, this wouldn’t take your notice, you wouldn’t give a shit about what Dave does in the bathroom, but you’re drunk and impatient and not as out of it as you’d like to be and you want to take it out on someone so you stop and turn around, adjusting your shades and your smirk.

“ ‘Sup, lil’ man,” you drawl, leaning against the doorway, casual and smooth in the way that only Striders are.

       Dave jerks his head in surprise and you think you see a glimmer of panic in his eyes, just for a second, you could have imagined it, it was so quick- and he adapts, pokerface slipping into place in a heartbeat, and you feel a surge of pride, you really did teach the kid well-“If you want to get in on my beauty routine, bro, you’ll have to wait till I post the tutorials on youtube,” he retorts, and oh, he’s _good_ -

“Not just this once for a loyal subscriber? Fuckin’ harsh, dude.” You laugh, and see his ears flush slightly red (and nope, you were definitely not fucking imagining that.) He suddenly becomes very interested in taming a particularly rebellious lock of hair just behind his right ear, and your gaze slides down his body, almost (but not quite) without you realizing it, taking in the faintly sculpted outlines of biceps under his skin, the narrow, slender hips, the pale freckled shoulders, and something stirs awake, heated deep in your belly (it's not like you hadn't noticed before, it's not like you hadn't looked, he was your _brother_ after all, but this time felt _different_ , and you couldn't quite pinpoint why).

(Why. Why did Dave seem different to you (why did the angles and shapes of his body seem so unfamiliar and alien ( _beautiful_ ) all at once), _why_ -then you get it.)

Somewhere, you realize, sometime you missed because you were too busy or just didn’t care, Dave grew up.

He wasn’t your little brother anymore, wasn’t naïve or questioning, knew his way around you, how to manipulate you, how to handle you.

(And, it hits you, he’s probably the only one who does, who sees you at your weakest, when you’re both on the roof and he tires you out (like he’s started doing lately) and you have to bend over and clutch your sides wheezing because you can’t breathe (you feel so old and aged and _useless_ , and he stands over you, still holding his katana, as stony-faced as you’ve ever seen him, and you can’t read him anymore, _you can’t_ ))

Somewhere, sometime, you became equals.

And you don’t know why, but that thought shocks you to the core, sends you staggering back a step away from Dave, who looks away from the mirror and at you like you’ve gone royally fucking delusional, but you don’t care, you can’t remember the last time you got this freaked out and- _and you’re actually fucking attracted to your brother, when did that happen, when did Dave half-naked give you butterflies and a semi and the urge to grip his shoulders and push him against the shower stall-_ “Bro?” He steps away from the counter and turns toward you, not wearing his shades so you can see the concern written on his face and in his eyes. “Are you okay? Chill out, man, I can give you a front-row seat to my makeup tutorials if you want-“

You’re close now, _thisclose_ to Dave, maybe inches, maybe breaths, a step closer is all it would take ( _take for what?_ you ask yourself, and you _know_ the answer, you _do_ , and it terrifies you). You reach out a palm, and gently brush the back of your hand against his cheek, and a jolt of electricity judders through your fingers and goes straight to your groin.

You feel him shudder, and that small motion rips through your daze and catapults you back to sanity, back to where you’re thinking about _kissing your ridiculously attractive teenage brother_ and you snap your hand back and away, choke out a “g‘night,” and flash-step back to your room, where you automatically lock the door and collapse against it with a gasp, your jeans agonizingly tight, red irises flickering at the back of your eyelids.

 


	2. Chapter 2

_Part II. Winning_

The next time it happens, Dave is sixteen and has just played a game, a game of which you remember nothing but flashes-meteors raining from the heavens and orange feathers and a monstrous dog thing that crackled with green light _(your katana through your chest and pain, pain, why did it hurt so much)_ , telling Dave _(notDavewrong somehow, you wish you remembered why)_ it was okay, not to be scared, you loved him _(did you say that? you think (youwish) you did)_.

You remember dying, and you remember dreaming.

And while you were gone, Dave played a game of chessboard universes, became a god incarnate, mastered time and spun it off his fingers to the scratched beat of a dead sun.

He played the game, and he won. And it brought you back.

It brought you back to blinking in the early-afternoon light, warm for the first time you can remember, and the light is so bright (you’ve been in the dark for so very long), even with your shades on, that you have to squint and put a hand over your eyes to make out the apartment, wrecked and rundown and familiar, outlined in a soft golden haze.

You have just enough time to see a figure, standing shocked in the doorway, a glimpse of mirrored shades, and then arms are tight around your neck and blonde hair fills your field of vision and it’s Dave, he’s sobbing, rambling words and nonsense, phrases like _three years bro_ and _saw your body_ and _lord english_.

You’re shushing him now, on instinct, stroking his hair and mumbling soothing sounds. He quiets down, hiccups. Your arms are around him now of their own accord. You make no move to remove them, and Dave doesn’t attempt to step away. You’re still taller than him, even though he’s sixteen now (dammit, missed three years), and from what you can see, he’s filled out a little, lanky build morphed into something less bulky and more compact than you, but by no means less powerful.

You don’t want to, but you gently break the two of you apart, untangling Dave’s arms from their death-grip around your neck and shoulders. There’s a red imprint from where the frame of Dave’s glasses pressed into the side of your throat.

“Kid.” Your voice cracks. “What the hell happened?”

~

It’s only at night, when the dark is still and silent and everything is dead again, that the nightmares come. You hear him crying out, sometimes your name, sometimes names you don’t recognize, names that roll strangely off the tip of your tongue.

And then the door to your room creaks open, and you hear him pad over to your bed. Hesitate, just a moment. Tentatively lift one side of the blanket and smoothly slide in. You keep your eyes tightly shut, your breathing deep and even. You don’t know if you fool him. (You don’t know if it matters.)

You drop off to a shallow, dreamless slumber sometime when the early morning dawn stretches at the corners of the walls. You wake up with Dave pressed flush against your body, legs tangled with yours, mouth slightly open in the way that hasn’t changed since he was two and drooling. He’s sprawled on top of you, stomach-first like a rag doll, a hand flung on your chest and around your bicep. The sun drifting through the uncovered window highlights the freckles on the back of his neck and how utterly blond his eyelashes are. He looks so very young, and your chest suddenly feels tight, a warmth drifting through it that has nothing to do with temperatures or heartbeats or breathing.

You blink, sure that it’s all a dream and you’re really drifting through cold space, eyes as blank and empty as the reality you’re trapped in.

The warmth stays. You decide it’s safe.


End file.
